Thursday, September 15, 2011

Work Visa Scam

The Des Moines Register recently reported that there is a work visa scam occurring in Iowa that could lead to many people's deportation.

According to one attorney, the scam goes as follows: A legal assistant goes door-to-door offering a work permit to anyone who files a $500 asylum claim. These assistants do not divulge that while asylum claim recipients can work lawfully while their case is pending, if they are not granted asylum, they may face deportation.
One victim, Fernando, told the Register that he has been caught in this scheme. He filed for asylum after he was promised a work permit and he is now flagged by immigration officials who were not previously aware of his illegal status.

The immigrant community in Iowa has increased from 1,465 people applying for naturalization in 2002, to 2,198 in 2009.

2 comments:

The increase in the immigrant community can be due to many reasons, such as work opportunities that are available in Iowa and other family members favoring Iowa as the state to settle in.

Iowa interestingly enough has always been a very attractive state to foriegnors. Early on Iowa would purposely try to attract immigrants by advertising in newspapers the rich farmland located in the state. I read a statistic that in 1870 about 18% of people living in Iowa were foreign born.